Subject:
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Re: Improving the adult image of LEGO
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:00:51 GMT
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Viewed:
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10904 times
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In lugnet.general, Dave Sterling wrote:
> This is a little off-topic, but I gotta agree with Mr. Eaton here. I don't
> think it's fair to blast LEGO for "not catering to the adult market". If we
> do a real quick review of sets geared more towards adults in the past 5-6
> years I come up with a great list.
Well, let's check the math on this, shall we? Now, you'll have to excuse me,
but I'm going to reorder your list by year of release, because it'll help me to
make my point, but I will not be omitting anything:
> 10189 Taj Mahal
> 10188 Death Star
> 10185 Green Grocer
2008
> 10190 Market Street
> 10182 Cafe Corner
> 10181 Eiffel Tower
> 10179 UCS Millennium Falcon
> 8275 Motorized Bulldozer
2007
> 10177 Boeing 787 Dreamliner
> 8527 Mindstorms NXT
2006
> 10143 UCS Death Star II
2005
> 10152 Maersk Sealand
> 10133 BNSF GP-38 Locomotive
2004
> 10025 Santa Fe Cars I
> 10022 Santa Fe Cars II
> 10020 Santa Fe Super Chief
2002
And according to his blog:
> Jake joins The LEGO Company
~2001
Notice something there? Namely, that _every_ set that you listed was released
after Jake joined the company. Pay extra attention to the bottom four on the
list. All four of those models, as I understand it, were designed by fans,
meaning they had little to no lead time on the set development compared to what
they normally need. When you consider that, it took them _THREE_YEARS_ to
finally release a set from your list that was actually developed from scratch
in-house, and one year beyond that to develop one that was actually designed
with AFOLs in mind (the Maersk Sealand was designed specifically for the Maersk
company at their behest, and only offered up to us because they were trying to
get rid of all the remaining Maersk-blue ABS pellets).
Now, to be fair, you did miss a few, like the original OMG set (10030 UCS ISD,
2002, for which the only design directive was "make it cool"), the first two
items based on modern weapons of war (3451 Sopwith Camel, 2001 & 10024 Red
Baron, 2002), the first airplane (10124 Wright Flyer, 2004) and the first major
architectural landmark sculpture (Statue of Liberty Sculpture, 2000). Of those
four, he might have had some involvement in the greenlighting of the ISD set,
and clearly couldn't have been involved with the Statue of Liberty. I'm
guessing the Sopwith Camel was already in the works when he got hired, and the
Red Baron probably came as an extension to that, but both of those sets retailed
for only $50, so they're not quite so clearly keyed to the AFOL community.
But the point is, all these big and wonderful sets that everyone loves quite
possibly wouldn't exist if Jake hadn't shaken things up.
> I think LEGO has done a phenomenal job of catering to the adult fan since at
> least 2002 (if not before) and they continue to get better each year.
Never said they don't. Just saying that it's a recent trend.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Improving the adult image of LEGO
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| (...) Actually, it's not a recent trend - it's a rediscovered trend. Look at the 39x Hobby Model sets from 1975 & 1976. They were clearly aimed at adults. Paul Sinasohn LUGNET #115 (16 years ago, 18-Sep-08, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Improving the adult image of LEGO
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| "Purple Dave" <purple_daveAThotmailDOTcom> wrote in message news:K7CvLF.3no@lugnet.com... [ .... snipped ... ] (...) [ ... snipped ... ] I had breakfast with Jake one time when I was in Dallas (probably 4-5 years ago) and he told me the story of (...) (16 years ago, 18-Sep-08, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Improving the adult image of LEGO
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| (...) This is a little off-topic, but I gotta agree with Mr. Eaton here. I don't think it's fair to blast LEGO for "not catering to the adult market". If we do a real quick review of sets geared more towards adults in the past 5-6 years I come up (...) (16 years ago, 16-Sep-08, to lugnet.general)
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